


Summers Day

by Transdodds



Category: Groundhog Day - Minchin/Rubin
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, High School, Love Confessions, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Poetry, Shakespearean Sonnets, Tutoring, also briefly - Freeform, briefly, this is incredibly cheesy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 11:37:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12863688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transdodds/pseuds/Transdodds
Summary: English analysis didn't make sense to Jeff and probably never would, but that didn't change the fact that whenever he looked at Wilbur he was pretty sure he understood exactly what Shakespeare's sonnets meant.





	Summers Day

Jeff thought this was ridiculous. Both the actual subject itself and the fact that his teacher had forced him to be tutored by a guy in the year above. No matter how many hours he put in it wouldn’t stop the fact that English analysis just didn’t make sense to him. However his protests had unsurprisingly not stopped the teacher from forcing him to stay after school every Thursday for tutoring. He was sure it was going to be torture, and he sighed before pushing open the door of classroom 6A, ready to get it over and done with.

As it turned out the tutoring sessions weren’t as bad as he thought they would be. It had been two months and was taking a long time but slowly Jeff was starting to understand what the teacher wanted him to write in his essays and his grades were reflecting this. The sessions themselves weren’t as boring as he thought they would be either, and though he would never admit this to anyone not even his best friend Debbie, he was starting to look forward to the hour he spent weekly with Wilbur. There was just something about the guys enthusiasm that made Jeff want to go the extra mile.

A smile crept onto Jeff's face as he listened to Wilbur read through the sonnet he had to write an essay on.

“...so long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee. Now, what’s Shakespeare's message” Wilbur said, looking up from the sheet and looking at Jeff.

“He’s saying that the summer… uh compared to the person he loves is terrible? Because summer is sometimes too hot or cold, and is affected by time, but like his love is always perfect and time won’t change that either, right?

 “Yes! Exactly! ‘And every fair from fair sometimes declines’ ‘but thy eternal summer shall not fade’ He also ensures that time won’t affect them by writing this sonnet, he makes them immortal. That’s what the rhyming couplet is talking about. So now we know that we can get to the fun stuff.” Wilbur said grabbing a pen and starting to annotate something in the margin, and though Jeff was sure he wouldn’t really understand what Wilbur was scribbling he was pretty sure he understood what Shakespeare meant. Spring was slowly but surely moving into summer yet Jeff would much prefer to be inside with Wilbur then outside, no matter how beautiful the day. There was just something about him: in the way he got so excited about delving into literature that his voice would get steadily louder as he animatedly explained the use of rhythm in the poem to get the point across, or would recite poetry with such passion Jeff could almost believe he’d wrote the words himself and he was speaking directly from his heart, or how he would always end the session by sharing some stupid literature joke, or even just the way he had that contagious smile that he’d give Jeff whenever he got something right that made Jeff want to try harder then he ever had before. Compared to Wilbur everything else paled.

 It was as he musing this that he realised something for the first time but definitely not the last, he loved Wilbur. Not that it would ever matter, Wilbur would never in a million years settle for him, but that didn’t stop the way his heart pounded when Wilbur caught him staring and flashed him a quick smile before he had time to look away. Or the way he got butterflies every Thursday afternoon until the end of term.

* * *

 

It had been almost six years and while Jeff still thought about Wilbur, he didn’t have the same strong feelings for him as he had back when he was sixteen.

Or at least that’s what he thought until his father mentioned over breakfast that he was getting a new police officer, Wilbur Jones, and Jeff got those familiar butterflies in his stomach. The feelings he still had for Wilbur became even more evident when one night he went over to the police station late at night, running into Wilbur in the practically deserted room as he made his way to his dad's office.

“Woah!” Wilbur exclaimed jumping backwards as coffee sloshed out of his extremely full mug, splashing the front of his shirt and pooling on the floor around his shoes.

“I am so sorry” Jeff said before pausing and, realising someone running through a Sheriff's office holding a brown paper bag late at night looked fairly suspicious, started to explain himself “I’m here to convince my dad to come home or at least eat dinner” he said hefting the bag up slightly “I’m Jeff, you actually-”

“-Used to tutor you. I remember. So, did my work pay off? Are you a budding poet now?” He said with a grin

“Actually, I work at the diner. You should come round some time, get a coffee on the house. To make up for the one I spilled. Which I am so sorry for” Jeff said, apologising again. It was just his luck that when he reunited with his high school crush he’d act like a complete and utter klutz.

“Well, i can never say no to free coffee. But don’t worry about me. It’s probably a sign I should go home” Jeff had been wondering why Wilbur was at the station so late after everyone except the Sheriff himself had left, especially as he was so new and was about to ask when Wilbur answered before he had to “I probably should’ve gone home hours ago but as the rookie, especially in my hometown, I feel I should prove myself.”

“Well, I’ll put in a good word for you” Jeff joked as he made his way towards his dad's office.

Wilbur came to the diner the next day to collect his free coffee, even if he did try to pay for it, and the continued to come day after day after day, making Jeff's heart flutter every single time. It would’ve been perfect if not for the fact Debbie had decided to start visiting the diner around the same time Wilbur did every day, dragging her boyfriend along as they both tried to encourage Jeff to actually say something. Jeff knew their hearts were in the right place and that they just wanted him to be happy, but it was hard to appreciate that sentiment when about once a week Debbie would forcibly push Jeff towards Wilbur, leading to an embarrassing amount of spilled coffee, and Wilbur to suggest more than once that Jeff might need glasses, and for no further moves to be made by other party in terms of their relationship.

 Actually nothing really happened between them no matter how much Jeff wanted something to happen, until the Groundhog dinner. Jeff was standing to one side of the hall, watching everyone else dance when suddenly Wilbur approached him.

 “Hi, Jeff”

 “Hey, Wilbur. If you’re looking for my dad, I saw him last over there” Jeff said pointing towards the drinks table.

 “Actually, I was, I was looking for you. I was wondering if… I was wondering if you wanted to dance” Wilbur stuttered out and Jeff was pretty sure he was dreaming and resisted the urge to pinch himself to find out, if this was a dream he wanted to live in it just a little while longer.

 “I would love to” Jeff said, placing his hands on the shorter man's shoulders, as Wilbur grasped his waist. They started to move in time with the music, and God, Jeff was sure he'd died and gone to heaven when, as the song ended, Wilbur started to lift up on his tiptoes, and Jeff leaned down and they shared a soft kiss. 

Wilbur had gone off to get them both some drinks, and Jeff was standing waiting for him with the biggest smile on his face when Debbie sidled up to him. 

"So, are you going to thank me"

"What for, Debbie?"

"Credit given where credits due"

"Except that you don't deserve credit for this. That would be like me demanding you thank me for your engagement, speaking of shouldn't you be with your fiancé instead of annoying me"

"But this is just so much more fun" Debbie replied as Wilbur returned and Jeff was sure that, despite all of Debbie's teasing he would never be happier. 

Until he was. Jeff and Wilbur had been dating for just over two years and Jeff almost couldn't believe how brilliant it all was and how full his heart was of love for the man dozing on the sofa in front of him. It was a typical lazy Sunday and he'd just returned from a shift at the diner to see Jeff stretched on the sofa, napping front of the tv. The sight of the man he loved looking so comfortable in the apartment they shared, with the sun streaming through the window and making the tips of his black hair turn into shades of brown stirred emotions deep inside of him. It reminded him of sunny classrooms and scribbled notes and caused him to look for five minutes for an old book of poems full of Wilburs annotations, before turning to a well dog-eared page, sitting on the arm of the sofa and starting to read aloud. 

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease has all too short a date:” Jeff started, and despite the soft tone of his voice, it was evident Wilbur was awake, as he shifted to look up at Jeff, flashing him a sleepy grin. 

 “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; and every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d” Jeff continued, and by this point Wilbur had moved so he was sitting against the armrest Jeff was perched on, and Jeff absentmindedly stroked his hair as he read. 

 “But thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou growest-"

 “-So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.” Wilbur finished for him, fully awake now, standing up and grabbing Jeffs hand to pull him up to, and giving him a kiss when he finished “Reciting Shakespeare's sonnets, and I thought I couldn't love you anymore then I already do"

 “Umm, well, I wasn’t sure how else to say what I wanted to say”

 “And what did you want to say?”

 “That, that I love you. That you're wonderful, and beautiful, and, and brave and energetic and so perfect everything else… everything else in the world seems dull compared to you. And that I would give anything to spend every day in your sunshine. Will you marry me" Jeff said, surprised the last sentence slipped out of his mouth, but realised almost immediately that it was true. All of it. 

"You want me to marry you?" 

"I mean, we don't have to. We haven't even talked about marriage. We can forget all about this, I don't even have a ring-"

"It's a good thing I do then, because my answer is yes" Wilbur said, giving Jeff another kiss, before sprinting into the bedroom and returning with a velvet ring box. 

"We, we can still forget all about this, if you want to propose your way. I'm sure it's much more special then this" he said gesturing slightly around at them, barely believing he'd actually ruined what should've been something incredibly romantic by just blurting the question out. 

"Trust me, anything with you is more than perfect for me" and as he slowly slipped the silver engagement ring on Jeffs finger, Jeff was certain he understood exactly what Shakespeare was writing about. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time properly writing this couple, so any feedback is greatly appreciated.


End file.
